Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Eagle landed yesterday:



Quickly opened:



and turret board assembled:



Some lessons about that:

• get your iron HOT, the turrets take a while to heat
• strip BOTH SIDES of the wire; you'll thank youreself later
• take your time, read the instructions (maybe twice) first for each step then go
• took about an hour and a half

Enough for one day...I have a cold

OK! New Day! Let's finish! Along the way:



The mechanical stuff is kinda hard for me. The chrome is beautiful but it made the screws for the output transformer not fit I used my small needle nose pliers (forged steel) to ream the holes a little and job done. Securing the turret board is a PAIN. Some of those mechanical tasks took way longer than I thought they should, but I took it slow and did not want to mar the beautiful chassis. You do need the right tools: a socket wrench with 11/32 and even smaller is a must.

BUT:



And test each thing carefully: 466v at the 16u cap and 1.95v at the 25u. Pretty close! No smoke! No blown fuse! Could it be working right off the bat?

http://www.pantanosoftware.com/music/BYOCChamplifierDemo1.mp3

YES!!!

And it's quiet as a MOUSE! I can't tell you all how great this thing sounds COMPLETELY STOCK.

Recording: I'm using the 4 ohm wire but the Lopo 10" cab is 8 ohm recorded with a Sennheiser e609 into Live, then Audacity for MP3-ness.

Nothing else.

Great!

Even though it is a kit, isn't it a great feeling to play through an amp YOU built. Maybe add a pedal or two that YOU built, and send the output into a speaker cabinet YOU built.

Anyone getting the itch to build their own guitar?

Congrats on the successful build.

rock on, i can't wait to get mine. solid looking build, keep updates coming.

Great work man! How many manhours in total?
Now give us 240V BYOC

Congratulations! I am impressed! It does sound really good too!

Total hours: 5 but that's because I took it real slow with the mechanical stuff, thinking it all through before jumping in. I'm famous for tearing things up and I sure did not want to do that with this little number!

Mods? The way this little guy sounds I would say none right now. I might source an NOS 5Y3, the Sovtek is a little stiff. Maybe it will soften with some playing. The JJ's are really nice - I have them in other amps.

My philosophy on mods is usually this: if I can't get some satisfying tone out of the original, I will mod until I find it. Or I might mod to add functionality if significant and relevant to what I do. In this case, no mods necessary, at least to the amplifier. When the cabinet comes, we'll see if the 8" is to my liking - if not I will mod the baffle to accept a 10".

Good job!

Bigger tips help alot too. I usually use a 3.2mm chisel tip with my soldering station cranked all the way, with the calibration pot cranked when I work with turrets. Adding solder to the tip to help increase contact area for heat flow is another thing that will help.

+1! If you can't get a chisel, use the side of the needle and lay it on there for a good while. Don't worry, nothing will melt!

+2! When I bought my Hakko 936 soldering station, I got a fine chisel tip for pedal work and a 3.2mm chisel tip for coarser work, amps in particular. You need the added contact area and MASS to provide rapid enough heat transfer for larger metal pieces, like these turrets. I don't even turn the iron's heat control up--it's enough just to use the bigger tip, at least with my Hakko station. It's also great for soldering grounding wires to the back of control pots in guitars, which used to drive me nuts with a small iron tip.

Started on my Champlifier kit the other night and got through the turret board population & wiring before I had to stop. Like Mike, I'm taking it very slow. Will knock it off by Saturday, though.

The only mod I'm planning for the initial build is the 470 ohm 1W screen resistor. Want to thoroughly check out the stock tone before making any changes.

+1. I converted my Blues Jr. to use octals and have a pair of JJ 6V6S's in it, which sound great. The 6V6S is a beefier tube than your typical 6V6GT, with significantly more plate area. You can see the difference on THIS PAGE at Bill Machrone's web site. He claims that this increased plate area contributes to noticeably better bass performance, and my Blues Jr. certainly has a nice thump with them. Also, the JJ tube is apparently often used in 40-60 watt 6L6 amps where players want less power and headroom, earlier breakup. Among 6V6 tubes, it’s the only one that can handle the higher plate voltages of these amps.

Mike, are you sure the cabinet itself is big enough to take a 10" baffle/speaker?

In the works. AAMOF, the kit I received has the dual service 240/120 PT that Keith is planning to offer. I think he just needs to finish modifying the kit instructions for installation/wiring with this dual-service PT and it should be ready to go.

Nope, but we'll see when it gets here...

'Xactly! I'm sure I could go a bit higher if I needed to w/o doing any harm, but that temp seems to work well for me. Haven't found anything yet that I couldn't do at that temp with the larger of the two tips.

I plan to skip the screen resistor and put a 6L6 in there. We'll never know what the OT can really handle until someone does something stupid! Plus, I have an old champ OT sitting around I can use for a replacement if I kill the stock one.

Awesome! You are officially the first completed byoc champ kit build that I've heard of so far, Mike. It's always nerve racking when a new kit goes out.

NO FAIR!! He's right down the left coast a ways from you & I'm way over here in Nuevo York! I cry foul! Boo!! Hiss!!

Heck, who am I kidding? Mike's the Usain Bolt of solder jockeys!


And you're just the man for the job, Morg!!

Are you using a guitar cable for the speaker output?

No. It's a speaker cable. Guitar cable for speakers are a bad idea, especially for high wattage tube amps...

Got mine running! No problems--everything fired up just fine, no smoke or blown fuses! The instructions are really good. If you can build a pedal, you can build this amp, just following the step-by-step. Just give it the respect and caution that 400+VDC deserves! It's built totally stock except for one small modification--addition of a 1W 470 ohm screen resistor on the 6V6.

I've never owned or played through a tweed-era Champ before, but it's got a sweet, round tone to it. Made for single coils, IMO. It's a tad darker than I'm used to, but not at all dull sounding. I really like how you can really dig in with the bridge pickup of a Strat or Tele without getting the ice pick through your eardrums. I haven't had the chance to crank it up yet, but will get to that soon enough. Seems to take pedals very nicely. And like Mike said, it's amazingly quiet.

Here are a couple of photos. This one is built with the soon-to-be-available 120V/240V dual service PT, which is why you see so many more wires coming out of the PT here than in Mike's amp. I need to push a few wires around to make it a bit neater in there....and order a cabinet and speaker! (Update: Ordered a Tweed Champ cabinet with the 10" baffle upgrade from Marsh Amplification, along with a Weber Sig 10AS speaker. Too bad I have ZERO carpentry skills, or I'd build my own. )

this thread excites me. i can't wait to work on one.

What gauge is the metal chassis? i am going to make one with vertical tubes that is more head style. i may start working on that while i wait to order the kit. i thought about using aluminum, but it will probably be to flimsy in a gauge i can bend, and too brittle if its thick. thoughts?

I vote steel. Steel Hammond chassis that are big enough to do a traditional head style layout (parts 1441-16 and -22) are 20 gauge steel. Big 100w heads are typically made of 16 gauge steel, so anywhere in that range is where I'd go for sheet size.

I've used one of the larger 1444 boxes (It was either the 22 or the 26, don't remember) for a project for work and wouldn't be inclined to use them again. Flimsy would be one way to describe them, I just didn't like the feel of them from a structural standpoint. I know you plan on folding your own, so if you go aluminum, I'd go larger than the 0.052" thickness they use.

Did anyone who's built the kit have difficulty with lead length? The 7" piece that runs under the board won't reach the volume pot or the tube socket. Seems like it should have been more like 8", now I've got to yard the board out and get some more cloth wire. Was it me or did you guys go long on your lead lenghts?

Just run it over the board. It won't hurt anything. Or better yet, get coax.

This is what really got me on tweed amps. I hardly ever used the bridge pickup until I switched to tweed. Such a round sound! IIRC, a volume bypass cap across lugs 2 and 3 of the pot will help. There's no DC on the pot, and only AC signal going through there, so if you have a cap substitution box for pedals, you can clip that on to select a cap value. I'll try this when I get to mine.